Samburu Women ‘bag it’ for SavingWild.com

“We have hundreds more women for this than we expected.”
It was an email I received a couple of weeks ago from Shivani Bhalla. The “women” she was referring to are the Samburu tribe in Northern Kenya, and “this” refers to Saving Wild’s Plastic Litter Clean up Project.

You may be wondering why Saving Wild’s program to rid Africa of toxic, harmful plastic bag litter would be a relevant project in the remote villages of Samburu, Kenya.

As Shivani explains in her report about the project (attached below), the women go to open air markets to buy sugar, tea, and other items. And, what do they use to carry those things home to their village? Flimsy, easily breakable plastic bags. Plastic bags have replaced traditional baskets all over Africa. In Kenya the bag litter is so prevalent it is often called the ‘national flower’.

Saving Wild’s solution?
Incentivize the people to clean up their environment, and stop using plastic bags.

How do we do this?
Through an exchange program.

Here’s how it works

In exchange for bringing in 25 plastic bags or other litter from the area, the women receive a canvas shopping tote, recycled from America.

Exchanges involving thousands of women and totes, and hundreds of thousands of plastic bags cleaned from the environment, have taken place in Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Kenya.

Watch our 3 minute video here:

Plastic Clean up Project in Africa

For this project with the Samburu, having many more women than we first anticipated was only the most recent of the unexpected delays we incurred since Shivani and I first made a plan to work together when I led a group to visit her in Kenya last year.

First, there was the delay from a severe drought, which caused the Samburu to leave their villages in search of water. Then the big rains came, once again delaying our project for another couple of months.

And that’s when the women got so excited to be a part of this project. As word spread to more and more villages, we were concerned there would not be enough totes for everyone who wanted to participate.

It is with much happiness that I can finally report, on February 17th, with the help of the incredible organizational skills from Ewaso Lion staff, and much effort from the Samburu women to collect and sort the garbage, our project was a big success.

The environment was cleaned of plastic bags, the women were educated about the problems caused by plastic, and everyone received a shopping tote from America in exchange for the litter they cleared from the surrounding area.

Samburu sorting the collected litter during the exchange

Inspecting their new Tote from America

Thank you to all Africa Inside donors, and to Pat Halligan and LiveGreenBeGreen, and Pati Arsenau’s class at St. Gregory the Great Catholic school in S. Carolina for collecting the totes, and donating funds towards this project. And thank you to theEwaso Lion Project for partnering with us, and to the Samburu women for their enthusiastic response.

Kids in Pati’s class hand painted some totes for the project

Help Africa Inside Rid Africa of Plastic Bags

1. Know someone who is going on safari and willing to carry an extra duffle bag (full of totes) for our programs? We need people to carry our totes as extra luggage to Africa for future projects.

2. Donate. We need money for paying the helpers for each project. We pay the people to get the totes to sometimes very remote locations, to organize the exchange (when Lori Robinson can’t be there personally), to dispose of the collected litter in a proper manner (often driving it to recycle centers or landfills a great distance away.

3. Collect totes for us. We are once again collaborating with LiveGreenBeGreen, this time for ourbiggest exchange ever.

4. Teachers, we would love to help you create a program to involve your students. Contact Lori@AfricaInside.org

How wonderful. I hope you will report back to us on how it was for you in Ghana. Can’t wait to hear.
Thanks for sharing here.

Pati Arseneau says:

Feb 26, 2014

You are an amazing women! Thank you so much for letting us be a part of your ongoing bag project in Africa. My Art Club (at St. Gregory the Great Catholic School) loved doing something that they knew was helping others. They were inspired by you and your experience in Africa. Thank you! God Bless You!

Awesome. Such uplifting news. Especially when so much news coming from Africa is about destruction of the environment and wildlife, it’s refreshing to see a positive story and positive impact from lovely peeps like you.

Lori says:

Feb 26, 2014

I agree Shara that there is so much negativity. What i have to remind myself and others is that one person, doing one small thing can have a huge impact. This project certainly is an example of that. Thanks for your kind words. Always great to hear from you.

Lori says:

Feb 26, 2014

Pati, it was so fun to work with such an enthusiastic teacher as yourself. Your students are very lucky to have you. I hope to do more projects with your school and you in the future. Thanks so much to you and your kids and your school for all your contributions to this project. You helped make it a huge success.

Linda says:

Mar 3, 2014

I am so proud of you and your success with the “Samburu Bag Ladies”…..